Supreeth Madduri

I had this thought while writing randomly. It wasn’t something I planned to arrive at. It just showed up somewhere as a glimpse, if you will. I accidentally happened to stumble upon it. The idea that one’s own thoughts and ideas could become a medium of influence, instead of constantly depending on something outside for motivation. On the surface, this sounds simple. Almost obvious. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized how rarely we actually live this way. Psychology has spoken about this for years. Daniel Kahneman, for instance, talks about how most of our thinking happens automatically. Fast, reactive, effortless. We respond before we reflect. We consume before we choose. And unless we consciously slow down, our thinking is mostly shaped by what is placed in front of us. A large part of our lives is spent exactly like that. Reacting. To people, situations, content, and opinions. Always responding to something external. In the middle of all this, there is an internal voice ...

You post a video online. It has music, clean cuts, and a rhythm that feels right. You didn’t do it randomly. While editing, you had a rough idea of how you wanted it to feel. You followed your instinct. The video does well. A hundred likes. A few nice comments. Your brain picks up on this quickly. You put in effort and got something back. That feels good. Your mind quietly notes this as something worth doing again. So you open your editing software again. You use a similar style. Similar pacing. Similar music. It works again. Nothing feels wrong. That first edit was driven by intuition. And intuition is real. It’s how you feel timing and flow before you can explain it. But early intuition is still rough. It can tell when something feels right, not always why it does. When people respond positively, that intuition feels validated. The edit worked, so the thinking behind it must have been right too - or at least that’s what your brain assumes. It feels like the loop is done. Because of t...

Sometimes I think about how a photograph, a sentence, and a film cut all carry the same silence. They pause the world just enough for you to notice it. It was never just one thing for me. Video Editing, yes. But also writing. Then photography. Filmmaking. Design. And Motion graphics. They’ve all taken turns shaping how I see. They seemed separate at first, but the more I practiced them, the more they started to talk to each other. Graphic design showed me how space breathes. Photography taught me stillness - the kind that feels almost meditative, like the world holding its breath for a second. Editing gave me rhythm, the heartbeat of a story. Motion graphics showed me that even type can move like a dancer. Cinematography taught me to listen to light. And writing gave me the language to make sense of it all. It stitched together the quiet lessons of each craft, turning them into thoughts I could hold. Once you touch different disciplines, they stop behaving like isolated islands. A ...

Let’s take a flower. Any flower. Take a close look at it. You may see a pattern of well-arranged symmetrical petals. Go even further, and you will see the parts of the flower formed in a certain way. A microscopic view gets you to a whole new pattern. Going down even further would reveal a pattern of a different kind. It goes on until it is indivisible. At the macroscopic level of a flower, it seems like a simple, beautiful flower. Only on inquiry does the flower reveal the complications of its beauty. Objectively, the beauty of a flower does not mean anything, but it’s the subjective inquiry towards something, the pursual, that reveals the ultimate truth. It’s the subjective pursual of beauty, the truth of the matter, that ends up forming the objectivity of the flower- The Ultimate Truth if you will. Take the same analogy and apply it to any aspect of your life, knowingly or unknowingly it will point you to the ultimate truth. Growing up, I was in awe of those who could perform on sta...

A couple of days back I was at an Aadhar Card Centre to get my details updated. While I was waiting for my turn, I was just observing the surroundings and just about so, I went into the rabbit hole of thinking about how the Aadhar Card as an idea must have originated. It must have started with a purpose that every citizen of India must have a unique number through which the person is identified. Sounds simple, right? While the idea is simple at its core, when implemented at scale it becomes extremely complicated- a complex system, if you will. Let me go down the rabbit hole even further and I will do that by making a conjecture, the conjecture being, that any Primitive Idea when it is scaled at large becomes a very complex system. And moreover, the same pattern can be observed everywhere, right from the formation of cities from an evolutionary biological standpoint to the present-day human behavior in society and whatnot! Let me explain what I mean. To implement the idea of assigning ...

When you are with your friends just about talking, while the conversation skipping from one dissociated topic to the next, have you ever observed that it's the most boring, daily life incident narrated by that one friend that gets the group hooked and NOT the most flamboyant piece of information that another friend had to say? What do you think? Good oratory skills you may say, but that's just a tiny part of the whole incident. Well, then, you may say it's the incident itself that made the narration so interesting, you may counter, but then it's a boring incident, no? Perhaps It's the culmination of both the ideas- the tool used for narration (oratory skills/screenplay) and making the banal idea into the most interesting part of the story (tell what is necessary to your friends/editing) The idea of this short film sounds too flat when read on paper. So to make it sound vibrant, we thought, after several discussions on the location that we were going to the making fi...

The answer to the seemingly never-ending quest for the purpose of life, in its reality, has no purpose as such, except it has.  Inquisitive being that Human is has always tried to pose questions for the things that were seemingly larger than himself. When he did find answers that were apparent, convenient, and limited- but not the truth, he settled. Evolution happened, as it should, so did the further quest in search of the truth, and thus, a philosophy ideated. To make it understandable of where I am heading towards, infamous work of Plato 'The Allegory of the cave'  serves as a substantial analogy that he makes of how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. T...

ಭಾಷ್ಪಕ್ಕೆ ಭಾವನೆಗಳ ಕೊಟ್ಟವರಾರು? ನೆನಪುಗಳೋ, ಜನರೋ, ಋತುಗಳೋ ಅಥವಾ, ನಡೆದು ಬಂದ ಹಾದಿಯೋ... ಮೈಲಿಗಲ್ಲಿನ ಮೇಲೆ ಹೆಸರು ಬರೆದಾಗಿದೆ ಇನ್ನು ಹಿಂದೆ ತಿರುಗಿ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ನಡೆದು ಬಂದ ಹಾದಿಯ ದೂರ ಮಾತ್ರ ಎದೆಗೆ ಸನಿಹ. ನೆನಪುಗಳಲ್ಲ, ಜನರಲ್ಲ, ಋತುಗಳಲ್ಲ... ಸಾಗುವ ದಾರಿಯಷ್ಟೇ ಭಾಷ್ಪಕ್ಕೆ ಭಾವನೆಗಳನು ತುಂಬುವುದು. ಇಂದಿಗೂ, ಎಂದೆಂದಿಗೂ; ಋಣಿಯಾಗಿರುವುದಷ್ಟೇ ನನ್ನ ಕರ್ತವ್ಯ.

ಯುದ್ಧಭೂಮಿ ಅಲ್ಲದ ಜಾಗ ಹುಡುಕಿದರೂ ಸಿಗುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಗತವು ನೆನೆದಿದೆ- ರಕ್ತದಿಂದ, ಕಷ್ಟದ ಕಣ್ಣೀರಿನಿಂದ. ವಿಸ್ತರಿಸಿದ ರಾಜ್ಯವಲ್ಲ ಸೈನ್ಯದ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲ ರಾಣಿಗೋಸ್ಕರ ಕಟ್ಟಿಸಿದ ಅರಮನೆಗಳಲ್ಲ, ಚರಿತ್ರೆಯ ದೊಡ್ಡತನ. ಕಪ್ಪು ಕೋಣೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಗಿ ಉಸಿರು ಹಿಡಿದು ಭಯದಿಂದ ಬದುಕಿದ ಜನರೇ ಚರಿತ್ರೆಯ ದೊಡ್ಡತನ, ಜೀವಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಹುಡುಕಿ ಬದುಕಿದ ಜನರೇ ಚರಿತ್ರೆಗೆ ದೊಡ್ಡತನ.

ತಾರೆಗಳು ಬೀಳುವ ಸಮಯ ಶರತ್ಕಾಲವಿರಬೇಕು ದೇವಲೋಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿದ್ದವು ಸುಮ್ಮನಿರದೆ ಕಣ್ಣುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ  ಕೂತು ಮಿನುಗಬೇಕಂತೆ. ಅವುಗಳಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡಿ ಇಟ್ಟವರಾರೆಂದು ಹುಡುಕಬೇಕು, ನನ್ನ ಕಣ್ಣುಗಳ ಹೋಲಿಕೆ ಇನ್ನ್ಯಾರಿಗಿದೆಯೆಂದು ಇಟ್ಟವರನ್ನು ಕೇಳಲು.

it's an all night's road and I'm not even counting the miles I don't seek stars to guide me anymore my screams inside Whisper a gospel or Two my worries as it Were yesterday are far too gone to carry anything from the shabby travelled path I hold nothing for the path yet to come It's a long night's road and I'm not even counting the miles.

The sound of a dropped coin  Into the piggy bank sounds like a desperate lover awaiting  at the opened doors of his heart. May be, that's what savings should Sound like. You put all your happiness into a whiff  Of desperation, that you slowly inhale, To make your heart ready to be served. Similar to inserting the coins, one after the other until the intensity fades. The art of saving, require a lot of talents. You need not put all your heart and soul in a single go. Relax. For instance, if the moon is shining bright today, save it for your darker days.  You see? Saving is an art. If you're wasting your love, hold on. Save it in your pockets, in your favorite books, in your diary, in your smile and most importantly in your belief. Let it entangle with every nook and corner of your bones until you feel like investing your savings on something worthwhile.

When you're out of words,  Just breathe. Just that. Your breath is your poetry. And when you do so  Listen to your breath, carefully. Dance around with the                                 silence and you might  as well hear it with a high  Pitched tone. Sometimes, your sweet little                       voice could be your wasted words. But, never mind. Just watch                       those sweet little words kiss                         the heaven. And always remember You're nothing short of the                             masterpiece that you always  Wanted to write.  Because, You are your masterpiece al...

The streets of Varanasi looked Familiar to me The bent and holes of the streets  French buildings, confusing  Crowd, deceiving weather And pretty much everything. As and when I started roaming  Around, the reminiscent of  My past started appearing on The walls of down trodden  Buildings, the etched names on the  Bank of the river which might  Have caused wars for land(s). I was lost. Google can get Awkward at times and make you so. I was lost. Completely.  Familiarity helps in ways you can't  Be less thankful for. Familiarity, sometimes, appear in the  Form of sweet words, affection at times  And in love, most of the times. I was lost. I couldn't leave a trail. But my name did. Did I travel the map? no. I just put my name on the map, happily.

Uncanny resemblances.  Of places, of scents, of smiles. Like that in any of the fictional novels, in a romantic love story, in a horror movie,  Possibly, in your poetry. You must have read about this character elsewhere.  Do you see me? Uncanny resemblances. with a stranger at your favorite restaurant,  Or In a tram of secluded hearts, Or In the names of familiarity, Or at your favourite place. Do you feel me? In the end, I'm just a passer by reference  in your story. And you, in mine. We're meant to cross the paths. After all, we are all just stories to be heard. Aren't we?

The best part about train journey is the window seat. For instance, I become a paradox with a window seat. Not the paradox that mind could think about , it's the paradox that, only the heart knows. The moving mountains, flying hair,  'Tuhi re' playing along, the train's shakiness putting me into sleep as the train sounds its  Lullaby. Is someone singing along, or is it the train? I wonder how perfectly Rahman's albums frames its lyrics with the window, itself. May be that's what moving keys on his piano mean. Also, that's what a hypnotist does to you. You're aware of your heart beat, not the senses; that you enjoy losing. I am the guy who quotes 'the part about reaching the destination is its journey towards it' I am the guy for whom R N Jayagopal songs has been written down for I am the guy who puts paradox across the minds Mostly, I am the guy by the window seat.

I have read about Casanova,  Cleopatra in the pages of  lust and seduction;  Whose eyes were made of love and perfection. I have read about the cosmos, about the space, about the time, about space-time, the dimensions, about parallelism in universe, And also about your selectivity  Of actions and words. Strip me your thoughts of far away world of granular dust hovering around. The art of seduction, as the books  mention, is a sardonic expression. Space and time slips away to  a world where 'Einstein' is an alienated term, with you standing naked with your words, alongside me. Looking beneath all the myths and theories, I find your eunoic to be far more seductive.

I see faint light glimmering through the hole of hope, flickering incessantly. I strive pretty hard  to get back at you, like a cuckoo popping out every hour, reminding  me of how eager I am at the closed doors of your heart. May be I shouldn't have met you, in the first place. Second of all, I shouldn't have  dreamt about our children,  our house, or anything with you in it. May be, you were my favorite lesson in my history class. Just so you know,  I used to hate history, Only to eventually admire it now. I stare at the flickering light missing your palms  and talk to myself  Saying, whatever will  happen, will happen. And may be that's how  I should be living. Picture courtesy: arvin_illustration (Instagram)

Ashes burnt smelled exactly like  the inhalation of first breath. May be that's what life is. It wasn't suffocating, at least for once; liberation, as they say, is the highest form of purity. For all I realize, death feels nothing like pathos. Liberation from chaos, you see? All the happiness and sorrow in the  world came down to dark particles of  burnt bones and bruised flesh. Nothing more. For all I realize, the war is within and so shall you conquer the roots. Liberation floats with the wings of purity And stings with the blood of hatred. For all I realize, love is the highest form of nothingness,  and so shall you love yourself first.

I find you in between the thin gaps of uncoloured spaces in a painting that is enthralled with the heart and soul of an artist; for thou art the voids that can't be filled. I find you in between the spaces of semicolons hoping to join the further clause, from a writer's diary revealing the emotions similar to that of mine; for thou art the pause for a beautiful sentence. I find you in between the subtle movements of a dancer's legs that are struggling for perfection, and those subtleties excite me like you do; for thou art my dancing distortion. Voids. Pauses. Distortions.  What is art, if not these and if not for these? An art full of uniqueness and an art full of resemblance.